1. Field of the Invention
The field of the invention is directed towards computer applications. In particular, the field of the invention is directed towards a physical health application.
2. Description of the Related Technology
The manual process of managing personal fitness and diet is time consuming and prone to error. To do so, individuals need to keep daily track of their fitness parameters, such as weight, fat level, age, re-estimate their activity level; recalculate caloric intake and expenditure; design custom meal plans and maintain food logs, etc. These activities involve calculations and extensive record keeping.
Mathematical equations involved in this process are complicated and are not easily accessible for an individual. It is hard to understand whether BMR, RMR, or EER caloric intakes should be consumed; what the impact is of changing activity level on previously calculated intakes; and how to factor in daily weight change into initially calculated intakes, etc. The level of effort required is evident after reading the Dietary Reference Intakes from National Academy of Sciences, which is the government standard for nutritional and dietary guidelines.
Another consideration stems from an abundance of misrepresentative information available from informal media sources such as magazines and the Internet. Often individuals are lead to rely on knowledge of BMI without realizing the higher importance of fat level, following fad advice on amounts and composition of a diet, ignoring the dynamic nature of dietary process (e.g. numbers estimated for the same individual at the beginning may no longer be valid some time later due to change in weight and other parameters), and jumping into planning their fitness and diet without understanding the core physiological processes, etc.
Therefore there is a need in the field to provide a comprehensive physical health application able to simplify the dieting process in a comprehensive and healthy manner.